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(((EPUB))) ☘ Endgame, 1945: The Missing Final Chapter of World War II ⇳ PDF eBook or Kindle ePUB free

Like a lot of you guys, I love the Second World War history I ve been reading about it since I was old enough to pick up a book, covering all theaters, battles, and periods This one was new for me though, and it was an amazingly enlightening read that covers the final month of fighting in Europe until the end of the Potsdam conference It s a tragedy filled story that showcases the brutality of the Nazis, the Soviets, and the Anglo Americans alike, each in their own way very much guilty of civilian destruction without really blaming one directly What I mean is this isn t a book that draws simple cliches like that Nazis were evil because they massacred innocents, and Soviets were evil because they raped hundreds of thousands, nor that Americans and British were evil because they leveled Germany s cities instead it tells the story of a war torn Europe in a way I ve never read about So many books just end with VE Day and this continues with personal reflections of those that lived in that terribly uncertain time of allied occupation and the beginnings of rebuilding It s a great read for anyone interested in world history and the Second World War, and an eye opener for open discussion on the true cost of that time Check it out.
(((EPUB))) ⇩ Endgame, 1945: The Missing Final Chapter of World War II ↛ A Harrowing Masterpiece Of Modern History Sunday Express David Stafford Weaves An Often Majestic Tapestry Of Testimony Time And Again, You Sit Up And Take Notice In Ways That Conventional History Lets Slip The Observer A Vivid Reminder Of The Misery That Persisted Across Europe Long After The Shooting Stopped In Daily Mail Stafford Skillfully Provides A Connecting Framework For A Narrative Of Almost Tolstoyan Proportions Which Only A Writer Of The First Caliber, Strongest Nerve And Monumental Intellectual Stamina Could Tackle The Spectator A Fine Book A Page Turner Compelling Len Deighton In This Compelling Narrative About The End Of The Second World War In Europe, Acclaimed Historian David Stafford Delves Behind The Dramatic Headlines Proclaiming Victory To Reveal The Horrors And Hardships Of Its Final Days And Aftermath Drawing Upon Diaries, Letters, And Personal Testimonies, He Brilliantly Interweaves The Lives Of Ordinary People With The Actions Of Military And Political Leaders To Paint A Vivid Panorama Of A Continent Scarred And Traumatized By A War Whose Effects Continue Long After The Fighting Has Stopped Fascinating report about the end days of World War II, seen through the eyes of several people on different places in the world Also covers the aftermath of May 1945 and the war in the Far East It s a story that has been told in a good way, captivating, telling of the horrors that took place. I hoped this book would let me know about the end of the war in Europe I thought including stories from men and women who were participating in some way would be a great way to flesh out the story Alas Stafford has written a nearly un readable volume that lacks big picture viewpoint and is confusing throughout He tells us in the introduction that he will be following 9 Western people American, Canadian, British, New Zealand soldiers UNRRA worker BBC correspondant German mother married to an Italian who gets sent to concentration camp by the Nazis between the period of Hitler s death and roughly the Potsdam conference I thought at the beginning that 9 people was a lot and it turned out to be too many Worse, Stafford follows them chronologically, so we hear about each one in each chapter It would have been better for him to discuss each individual and their experience in separate chapters Not surprisingly, we find at the end that nearly all of the 9 have published their own books or memoirs of their experiences, so Stafford is left with little to do other than try and provide a larger context for the individual experience Sadly, I just didn t think that context was provided and that the book overall was poorly written. In Germany, the last few months of WW II were an utter bedlam of competing problems First, of course, was the assurance that fighting would actually cease, that no German units maybe with, maybe without connection to the nazi hierarchy, or what was left of it would continue fighting Then, how to feed and house the millions of displaced persons, vast numbers of whom were recently freed from concentration camps And how to prevent a war from making itself appear with the Red Army and with Tito.Dealing with the nazi leadership was a small problem, by comparison Some of the snakes like goering and himmler conveniently killed themselves Nuremberg took care of many others, and countless individual scores were resolved locally by post war revenge.Ike understood the issues extremely well he took great care to avoid starting a war with Stalin, especially over conflicts about who could claim Berlin He and Churchill, along with Truman, drew a hard line with Tito The Cold War resulted, but that was probably the best of all alternatives Looking back, it is surprising that WW II did not simply roll over into WW West vs Stalin.This book covered numerous aspects of the end of the war in Germany, and based these on the stories of about a half dozen people who were involved, in one form or another The scenarios were described in great detail, enough that I felt like I was there A very interesting set of situations. The subtitle of this book says it all Victory Retribution Liberation A disturbing and eye opening picture of the final weeks and immediate aftermath of World War Two in Europe which clearly demonstrates that the death of Hitler and the collapse of the Nazi regime was than just a cause for street parties this was the beginning of a whole new set of problems and dilemmas for the Allies and the civilians of occupied Europe.Stafford narrates the events partially through the words of a selection of individuals involved, including a female worker for UNRRA, a British BBC war correspondent, a refugee from Nazi Germany who parachuted back into Austria as an SOE agent, the daughter of a prominant German who had been executed for opposing the regime, and soldiers from Canada, New Zealand and the United States He is particularly interesting on the state of denial many Germans found themselves in in the immediate aftermath of the war s end, and on the situation in Italy, which is not often covered in any depth in books on this sort of subject This is not an easy read, but Stafford throws into clear relief the depths that human nature can sink to on both sides of the ideological divide. This is a really good book about the last few months of WW2, following the experiences of several particular men and women through the experiences up to and beyond VE Days several American GIs, a British war correspondent, a New Zealand intelligence officer, a German prisoner of war, a British aid worker It explores how the conflict didn t necessarily end on VE Day, how there was still fighting in many places, how the new found chaotic and confusing peace required as much effort and energy and organisation as the war, with so many prisoners, displaced persons, Nazis, partisans, collaborators milling about It really makes you realise that for almost everyone the final victory was as bitter as a defeat, and no one really won anything A wonderful book. Stafford tries to convey a feeling of a cross section of politics, society, economy etc etc throughout Europe, through the stories of a few individuals In this, he fails admirably, because it s largely impossible to do something of that sort The characters described real men and women are not even characteristic of the peoples of Europe.That said, their stories are very interesting and engrossing, and you ll find yourself going for just a few pages It s just that he could simply put the stories in order, instead of intertwining them. Well writtenvery grim subject matter As I read it, I kept thinking that certain chapters of this book would make great supplementary reading material for a high school AP or college European History course because it put human faces to facts and figures. I ve recently visited Nuremberg where the anti Semitism became laws and Dachau where people ended up when those laws were weaponized , and returning to those places helps us remember how otherwise healthy societies can go off the rails I think in Shutter Island Dennis Lehane and Scorsese effectively fictionalized the shock and horror that Allied soldiers ran into when they liberated places like Dachau, but I also like to be reminded how General Eisenhower made the people living nearby go bury the dead in those camps In Endgame, 1945 Stafford also reminds us how Eisenhower made a conscious decision to keep our soldiers out of the meat grinder that the two nastiest totalitarian regimes on the planet were producing in Berlin Stafford narrates a landscape on the continent of refugees everywhere, liberated populations settling pre war scores against each other, and a pervasive dread that the Nazis had stockpiled supplies in the mountains to facilitate a guerrilla war against the Allied armies trying to sort this chaos all out Those victorious armies were also exhausted, and many of the accounts in the book speak of the fatigued soldiers concerns about moving to the Pacific and the next fight The reader can easily sense in the interviews and journals the relief at the news that Nagasaki had brought Imperial Japan to the peace table To close the circuit, I would like to return to Dachau, where General Eisenhower sent the press in as a bulwark against the later Holocaust deniers he knew someone needed to record the residue of evil we found there or it would be hard to believe We also need to revisit Nuremberg, where the Allies tried and executed a good number of the captured Nazi leadership the remainder found acquittal, went to prison, or hit the easy button and bit into cyanide capsules I think works like Endgame are essential now, as the Greatest Generation and their memories of these events slip this mortal coil We need to be reminded of how close civilized man is to slipping into venality and Hobbesian anarchy We also need to recall the sacrifice and character that went into the task of storming the glacis of Europe Recommend.